We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning.
DROP (2025)
At one point, Christopher Landon was attached to direct the seventh film in the Scream franchise; a hire that I was all for, having enjoyed Landon’s comedic slashers Happy Death Day and Freaky. Unfortunately, the version of Scream 7 that Landon was attached to direct crumbled around him and he had to leave the project for his own well-being. Thankfully, while Scream 7 went off in a different direction, Landon was able to pivot right into making the thriller Drop. He wasn’t able to make a Ghostface movie, but he still made another movie that I ended up thoroughly enjoying.
Scripted by Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach, Drop is a team-up between the genre movie production companies Platinum Dunes and Blumhouse – and actually turned out to be a lot better than many of the previous Platinum Dunes and Blumhouse productions. Meghann Fahy stars as Violet Gates, a woman who endured a horrifying ordeal with an abusive husband and is now at a place in her life where she’s ready to try dating again. Through an app, she sets up a date with photographer Henry Campbell (Brendan Sklenar) and they meet up at a restaurant that sits at the top of a high-rise building. Unfortunately, there’s something strange about this date night from the start. As soon as she gets to the restaurant, Violet starts receiving “Digi-Drops” from someone in the vicinity on her phone – and these “Drops” get threatening, to the point that the anonymous person sending Violet messages reveals that a masked, armed intruder is in Violet’s home with her sister Jen (Violett Beane) and young son Toby (Jacob Robinson). If Violet doesn’t comply with everything the messenger wants her to do, her loved ones will pay the price.
So we have a very intriguing, involving thriller set-up, and Landon milks as much tension as possible out of the scenario. This is the sort of movie you could imagine Alfred Hitchcock making if he were still around today... although, of course, it probably would have been better with Hitchcock at the helm, because he would have put more work into the script, and there are some moments here with the script lets Landon down. But things never get too bad – and there was only really a moment in the end that left me saying, “Really? They couldn’t have handled that better?” It also made me think of the Wes Craven thriller Red Eye, which I've always felt was underrated.
For the most part, Drop makes for a riveting viewing experience, and Fahy did great work in the lead role, handling everything Landon, Jacobs, and Roach threw at her. Sklenar also does a solid job as her co-lead, playing a character that viewers are likely to be suspicious of for a good stretch of the 95 minute running time.
I won’t say whether or not you should be suspicious of Henry Campbell, but I will say that if you’re a fan of thrillers, Drop is well worth checking out.
KATE (2021)
The action movie Kate was directed by Cedric Nicolas-Troyan from a screenplay by Umair Aleem – and since Nicolas-Troyan is a visual effects artist who previously directed The Huntsman: Winter's War and Aleem’s only previous writing credit was the 2015 direct-to-video action movie Extraction (the Bruce Willis one, not the Chris Hemsworth one), those names probably aren’t familiar to you. More likely to strike a chord is the production company 87North Productions, which was founded by David Leitch and Kelly McCormick and is known for stunt-heavy projects like John Wick, Atomic Blonde, Nobody, Bullet Train, Violent Night, and The Fall Guy. You know what you’re getting into when you check out an 87North production, and Kate is exactly along the lines of what you expect.
The actor who got to do stunts and elaborate fight scenes this time around was Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who was cast as the title character, an assassin who carries out jobs for her mentor Varrick (Woody Harrelson), who took her in when she was orphaned as a child. Sent to Osaka to take out a major player in the yakuza, Kate initially makes the same decision that has caused trouble for assassins in plenty of other movies and decides not to take her shot because a child is present. But Varrick talks her into taking the shot and killing the guy anyway... and the decision to shoot somebody in front of a kid weighs so heavily on her, she’s ready to retire. Of course, movies have told us that assassins can’t just quit so easily, and Kate finds herself caught in the middle of a yakuza power struggle. And poisoned.
With just one day left to live, Kate goes on a mission of revenge to bring down the people responsible for her poisoning – and in the process, kidnaps the teenage niece of yakuza crime boss, Ani (Miku Martineau). Who is, Kate is troubled to realize, the girl she killed somebody in front of. And it wasn’t just somebody to Ani, it was her dad. So Kate and Ani have some issues to overcome, and they manage to do so when it’s discovered that members of Ani’s family also want her dead so they can take control of the family’s criminal empire.
The plot just serves as a set-up for multiple action sequences where we get to watch Kate take down a whole lot of enemies. Winstead doesn’t do some of the fight choreography as smoothly as the stars of other 87North movies have, but she does a serviceable job with it all, and there are some pretty cool moments in the movie.
With a running time of 106 minutes, Kate does feel like it goes on for a bit longer than it should have, but it’s a decent action flick and not a bad way to kill some time.
FLIGHT RISK (2025)
Mel Gibson has had some great success with his directing career, winning an Oscar for directing the Best Picture winner Braveheart, earning another nomination for Hacksaw Ridge, and making the highest-grossing independent film of all time with The Passion of the Christ. Most of his movies have felt like high-profile special events, and usually they were movies that would only have come from Gibson. But now we get Flight Risk, with Gibson taking a work-for-hire gig to helm a simple, typical thriller. He did a fine job with it, and yet, Flight Risk really isn’t anything special.
Michelle Dockery stars as Deputy U.S. Marshal Madolyn Harris, who has to accompany mob accountant-turned-informant Winston (Topher Grace) on a small puddle jumper plane flight across Alaska when Winston is caught hiding out in the state. Their pilot is an off-putting fellow named Daryl Booth (Mark Wahlberg), who lets them know that the plane has some issues, particularly with the radio and GPS. Something is not quite right from the start, and sure enough, it’s soon revealed that Daryl is not who he says he is. He’s an assassin who has been hired by the mob to make sure Winston will not have the chance to testify against the Moretti crime family.
And that’s the whole movie. For 91 minutes, Gibson and writer Jared Rosenberg have Madolyn and Winston struggle to figure out how to handle this situation and safely complete their flight across Alaska – without a proper pilot, but with a blood-crazed killer on board. It’s a difficult situation to keep interesting throughout, having just three people interact (and occasionally make some calls to others) within the confines of a small plane, but the movie works and doesn’t overstay its welcome.
That’s not to say there aren’t questionable moments in the script – Madolyn’s character is really underserved by the writing and comes off as more dimwitted than she should - or that the film’s low budget doesn’t shine through at times (even though it wasn’t extremely low; $25 million), but it provides a good enough time for a viewer in the mood to watch a simple, straightforward thriller. Plus, you get the chance to see Mark Wahlberg chew the scenery as his insane, resilient character, who meets a fittingly ridiculous end.
INTO THE FIRE (1987), a.k.a. THE LEGEND OF WOLF LODGE
In recent years, director Graeme Campbell has been pumping out TV movie romances and holiday flicks (a whole lot of Christmas, but some Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day, too) – but back in the ‘80s, he made his feature directorial debut with the thriller Into the Fire... which is also, confusingly known as The Legend of Wolf Lodge. I say this is confusing because there’s no specific “legend” to be found in the film, nor do people do much referencing of a “Wolf Lodge,” even though we do see a sign with that name on it. Blink and you’ll miss it.
Scripted by Campbell and Jess Ballard, this movie gives away what could have been a twist right up front when a scared young man is seen exiting the remote country home of married couple Dirk and Rosalind Winfield (Art Hindle and Susan Anspach), running for his life out into a dark winter night. Soon after, an unnecessary bit of voiceover reveals that scamming young men who work for them is somehow the way this couple makes a living. So when musician Wade Burnett (Lee Montgomery) passes through town while on a road trip with his dog and takes a job as a hired hand for a couple of weeks at the Winfield home, we know he’s going to end up running or fighting for his life soon enough. But the movie would have been more interesting and involving if the scheme had been saved as a twist.
Wade strikes up a relationship with local waitress Liette (Olivia d’Abo), and the idea seems to have been that Liette takes so long letting Wade into her pants, he’s sexually frustrated to the point that he gives in and has sex with the flirtatious and supposedly very-unhappy-in-marriage Rosalind Winfield. Then, once Liette has sex with him, he decides to call it off with Rosalind. The problem is, there’s a scene that feels like it was meant to come later in the movie (and we appear to go back to that scene later) that shows Wade and Liette having sex before he sleeps with Rosalind for the first time. He’s a bit of a cad no matter how you slice it, but the situation could have been handled better.
So there are script and editing issues that mess up the story and reflect poorly on the lead character... but if you can overlook those, Into the Fire is an interesting enough thriller that still manages to have some twists and turns along the way, and packs some entertaining violence into its final moments. This was my first time watching the movie and I don’t think it will have much rewatchability – partly because its issues hold it back from inspiring multiple viewings and partly due to what happens to Wade’s dog – but it was fine for a one-time viewing.
Campbell went from making this movie to making the 1988 horror movie Blood Relations, which I watched for the first time last year.
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